


Hold Me Closer, I'm Safe in Your Arms

by actuallyronanlynch



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Ronan Lynch, Post-The Raven King, Pre-Call Down the Hawk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24870565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actuallyronanlynch/pseuds/actuallyronanlynch
Summary: “You wanna tell me why I had to hear fromHenry Chengthat my boyfriend was at the hospital?” Adam hissed, though his voice wasn’t as acidic as it could’ve been. Ronan took small victories where he could.“You don’t have a cellphone,” Ronan pointed out flatly. “It’s not like I could’ve gotten a hold of you.”
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 16
Kudos: 233





	Hold Me Closer, I'm Safe in Your Arms

**Author's Note:**

> I got a prompt on Tumblr from kristamathis to write a hurt/comfort fic involving broken bones, so I've done my best to oblige! I hope you enjoy.  
> (P.S. this was aptly titled the "bone hurting fic" while it was in my drafts).

It was the beginning of March, the cool Virginian winter dissolving away into spring more with each passing day, when Ronan broke his motherfucking ankle.

Well, _break_ was a bit hyperbolic. It was technically a _fracture_ , but the bone was distinctly not as whole as Ronan would have liked it to be, so he felt wholly justified in his dramatics.

He’d been in the process of replacing some particularly worn shingles on the roof of one of the barns when he slipped off the ladder climbing back down, and as soon as he hit the ground he knew that he’d fucked something up in a way that he wouldn’t simply be able to walk off. He didn’t have his cell phone on him, because he never _used the damn thing_ , so after lying in a heap on the ground cursing at the top of his lungs for a good few minutes, he unsteadily hauled himself to his feet and limped his way across the grounds back to the farmhouse.

The pain was so bad that it nearly had him in tears, and he gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached as he dragged himself up the stairs and dug his phone out of a pile of discarded clothes on his bedroom floor. He called Gansey and prayed he’d pick up, and let out another vicious string of profanity when it went to Gansey’s voicemail. He pressed redial and slowly lowered himself to his floor, leaning his head back against the side of his bed as he listened to the incessant ring of the phone.

Gansey picked up on Ronan’s third attempt at reaching him, thick concern immediately present in his voice. “Ronan, I’m sorry, I was dropping Jane off and left my phone in the car,” he said, and Ronan heard the door shut noisily as Gansey presumably fell back into the driver’s seat. “Is everything all right?”

“I need you to take me to the hospital,” Ronan bit out, anger bleeding into his words even though he was angry with himself and not at Gansey.

“What happened?” Gansey demanded, zero to one hundred in an instant. Ronan couldn’t exactly blame him; all of their hospital trips over the past year had been under pretty dire circumstances.

“I fucked up my ankle,” Ronan said, hissing through his teeth as he moved his leg and pain shot through it in response. “I can’t really drive myself when I can’t move my fucking foot.”

“Should you call an ambulance?” Gansey said, and Ronan made a disgruntled sound.

“I don’t wanna deal with that shit right now, Dick,” he snapped. Hospitals made him uneasy enough; he didn’t want paramedics flooding his home and taking him out to an ambulance on a stretcher. “Please, Gansey.”

The plea must have snapped Gansey out of his panicked daze, because the next time he spoke he sounded more like his usual put-together self. “Okay. All right. I can come get you. Are you all right for now, though? Where are you? It’ll take me about twenty-five minutes to get out there.”

“In my bedroom,” Ronan said, exhaling deeply through his nose. The thought of waiting for twenty-five minutes only to wait another twenty-five to get to the hospital was agonising. “I bet you could make it in fifteen.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Gansey said, and Ronan heard the Pig’s engine roar to life. “Call me if anything gets worse. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Ronan fought the urge to chuck his phone at the wall when Gansey hung up, letting it fall onto the floor beside him instead and lifting his wrist to his mouth to gnaw at his leather bands.

Gansey made it to the Barns in twenty minutes, and Ronan heard his rushed footsteps pounding up the stairs once he was inside the house. He was fucking thankful he never bothered to lock the front door.

“Where’s Opal?” was the first thing Gansey said as he struggled to help Ronan to his feet.

“Fuck if I know,” Ronan said. “Probably off in the forest somewhere. As if she could fucking help me walk.”

“I meant she could’ve gotten your phone for you, Ronan,” Gansey said, exasperated, and slowly led Ronan out into the hall.

They both struggled as they tried to carefully make their way back downstairs. Ronan stepped too heavily on his bad ankle and let out a cry of pain before he could stop himself, and Gansey hurried to support more of his weight as they stumbled down the last few steps to the main floor.

Gansey helped Ronan into the passenger seat of the Pig despite Ronan’s violent cursing, and once they’d pulled back onto the road, Gansey took off in the direction of Henrietta faster than Ronan had ever seen him drive.

“How did you hurt your ankle?” Gansey asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

“Fell off a ladder,” Ronan grumbled, embarrassed in spite of himself. “I was up on the roof replacing shingles.”

“Okay,” Gansey said slowly. “I think the takeaway from this is not to do work on the roof when no one else is around.”

Ronan let out a pained sigh, pressing the side of his head against the cool glass of the car window. “I have shit I need to get done. It can’t always wait until there’s another human being on the premises.”

“Parrish spends all of his free time at the Barns,” Gansey countered, unimpressed. “Speaking of which, I should probably see if someone can stop by Boyd’s to let him know what’s going on.” Ronan didn’t think that was going to go over well, but he couldn’t really think of a better alternative.

When they arrived at the hospital, Gansey helped Ronan hobble into the building after Ronan loudly protested being taken inside in a wheelchair. The wait in the emergency room was worse than waiting at the Barns had been, because at least Ronan could swear out loud as much as he wanted to in his own home.

Ronan did his best to be civil when he was finally taken in to be examined, which meant he mostly kept his mouth shut while Gansey relayed what he knew to the doctor. It took fucking forever to get the x-ray done and get the results, and Ronan was more than a little annoyed that a lousy fracture had caused him so much pain in the first place.

They put a cast on him (which he hated), and he was given a prescription for painkillers (which he also hated). The whole endeavour took a few hours, and by the time he was released (on crutches, which, surprise, he fucking hated), Adam was lingering in the triage waiting room, still in his coveralls and looking royally pissed off, which Ronan had anticipated.

“You wanna tell me why I had to hear from _Henry Cheng_ that my boyfriend was at the hospital?” Adam hissed, though his voice wasn’t as acidic as it could’ve been. Ronan took small victories where he could.

“You don’t have a cell phone,” Ronan pointed out flatly. “It’s not like I could’ve gotten a hold of you.”

“You could have called Boyd’s!” Adam said, trying to keep his voice down so he wouldn’t attract attention to them.

“I kind of needed to get to the hospital, like, immediately. You were in the middle of your shift.”

“I would have _left_ ,” Adam said, some of the heat returning to his voice. Gansey cast a wary look between them.

“Can we continue this outside?” he asked, glancing around sheepishly.

Adam sighed but relented, waiting for Ronan to push himself out on his crutches before dutifully following after him. “I’m gonna take you back to the Barns,” he said, pulling his car keys out of his pocket. “Thanks for getting him, Gans. And for getting Henry to come tell me what was going on.”

“Of course,” Gansey said quickly. “Of course. If anything happens or you need any help, give me a call, all right?”

Adam nodded brusquely before busying himself with throwing Ronan’s crutches into the backseat and helping Ronan lower himself into the car.

“Need to stop at the drug store to pick up my prescription,” Ronan said, still displeased at the idea of taking painkillers in the first place. “God, I fucking hate this thing, it’s so fucking _bulky_.”

“What, your cast?” Adam asked, turning in the direction of the closest pharmacy. He still didn’t sound pleased, but some of the irritation had faded from his voice.

“Yes,” Ronan groaned. It wasn’t the first time in his life that he’d broken a bone, and it likely wouldn’t be the last, but no matter how many times he’d been through the situation it still didn’t make it easier to cope with. “This is bullshit. How am I supposed to get anything done when I can barely move?”

“I’ll help out,” Adam said, firmly, leaving no room for argument. Ronan still felt an argument rising in him regardless. “How did this even happen?”

“I fell when I was replacing the shingles on one of the barns,” Ronan said, past the point of being tired at repeating the story over and over. “And you don’t need to lecture me, I already got one from Gansey on the way to the hospital.”

“Good,” Adam said, glancing over at Ronan. “I hope he chewed your fucking head off.”

Ronan felt a little guilty over how visibly worried Adam was for him, but he also found it endearing, which wasn’t something he was willing to admit aloud. “Yeah, yeah, I’m banned from climbing high places when no one’s around. I got it.”

Adam pulled into the parking lot outside of the pharmacy and turned off the car, plucking the prescription paper from Ronan’s lap and extending his hand for Ronan’s credit card. Ronan pulled his wallet out of the glove compartment and handed the whole thing to Adam instead.

“Don’t move,” Adam told him, like he could have if he fucking wanted to.

It took about fifteen minutes for Adam to return with his prescription, and by that point Ronan was used to the pain enough that it was mostly a dull ache in his periphery. Adam set the paper bag in the backseat with Ronan’s crutches before getting into the car himself, and he sat silently for a moment before he restarted the engine.

“You need to be more careful when you’re doing stuff alone at the Barns,” Adam started. “I mean it. I know you’re gonna act all tough and act like this isn’t a big deal, but it could’ve been worse than a fractured ankle.” He exhaled slowly and scrubbed a hand over his face, and Ronan felt another surge of guilt over how exhausted Adam looked. “If not for your own self preservation, do it for Gansey, Blue and I. You scared the shit out of me.”

Ronan stared down into his lap, appropriately shamed. “It fucking hurt so bad, man,” he admitted, tugging at his leather bands. He still had the hospital tag tied around his wrist.

“And hopefully that’ll encourage you to be careful for once in your life,” Adam said. He gingerly took one of Ronan’s hands and pressed a kiss against his knuckles before moving to pull them back onto the road.

Ronan managed to enter the house on his crutches with minor difficulty, and once they were both inside, Adam helped him change out of the clothes he’d worn to the hospital into something more comfortable.

“This isn’t really the way I typically like to be undressed by you,” Ronan grumbled as he sunk onto the couch afterwards, turning the prescription bottle around in his hands.

“I’m not fucking you while you’re high on pain meds,” Adam said kindly, patting Ronan on the knee before ducking out of the living room to deposit Ronan’s dirty clothes in the laundry room.

Ronan had already decided he was going to dream something up to make his stupid ankle heal faster, and he told Adam as much when he returned in a pair of Ronan’s sweatpants and an old tennis sweatshirt.

“Ronan,” Adam said, extending the glass of water he’d grabbed on his way back. “Maybe you should just let your body heal on its own.”

Ronan scowled as he popped one of the pills into his mouth and chased it with the water. “No way in hell. They said it’s gonna take six to eight weeks to heal. I can’t just leave the farm to its own devices for two fucking months.”

“I said I would help,” Adam protested.

“You have school and work,” Ronan said. “What, you’re gonna get up even earlier than you already do to feed the cows? Come here after your shifts to do everything else?” Adam blinked. That was clearly exactly what he’d been planning to do. “No, no fucking way. You barely get any sleep as it is.”

“It’s not like we have another option.”

Ronan gestured to himself impatiently. “I can pull whatever I want from my head, Parrish. Ring any bells?”

Adam rolled his eyes dramatically and reached for Ronan’s prescription bottle. “I’m going to make dinner. Do you want anything?”

Ronan didn’t particularly feel like eating, but he knew that he should probably get something into his empty stomach. “Okay. Thank you.”

Adam sighed and leaned down to press a gentle kiss against Ronan’s cheek before heading off in the direction of the kitchen. Ronan took a few more sips of water before trying to get comfortable on the couch; regardless of what Adam said, he wasn’t going to be bed bound for two motherfucking months.

He fell into the dream easily. It was different without Cabeswater, but that was another problem he was working on fixing.

It didn’t take long for him to find what he was looking for: a small prescription bottle like the one they’d picked up from the pharmacy, nestled carefully among a pile of leaves on the ground. Ronan picked it up and studied the contents inside. There were about a dozen small, red pills in the shape of Skittles, and Ronan rattled the bottle to hear them shake against the plastic. He hoped to God they weren’t actually just candy, but he’d gotten better at controlling his dreams over the past half-year.

When Ronan woke up, he was immobilised in place like he always was after taking something out of a dream. He eventually regained control of his hands, first, then his feet, followed slowly by the rest of his limbs. He examined the pill bottled clasped in his right hand; it was identical to the one from the drug store, minus the standard label on the front with his name and the name of the prescription. This bottle simply stated TO FIX UR BONES in all caps across the otherwise empty label.

He smirked to himself as he uncapped the lid, tipping one of the red pills out into his palm for further inspection. It really did look like a fucking Skittle. He’d have to store them somewhere high up so Opal wouldn’t try to get into them.

He popped the pill into his mouth and was surprised when it immediately began to dissolve on his tongue. To his disappointment, it didn’t taste like candy. It didn’t taste like anything at all, which was probably better than it tasting like medicine, but he was still slightly put-out.

He replaced the lid and set the bottle on the table next to his water glass before picking up the remote and idly beginning to flip through channels on the TV. He couldn’t have been asleep for longer than twenty minutes, and he could still hear Adam puttering around in the kitchen as he finished up whatever he was making them for dinner.

Ronan heard the front door open and heard Adam direct Opal upstairs for a bath, and he settled on a channel playing reruns of _The Office_ a few moments before Adam returned to the den carrying their dinner plates. He’d made them pasta with tomato sauce, and Ronan’s stomach growled audibly as Adam set their plates down on the coffee table.

“If you were hungry, you could’ve said something earlier,” Adam said, smiling a bit.

“I wasn’t hungry before,” Ronan scoffed. “The pain meds took some of the edge off. I’m feeling a bit better.”

Adam handed Ronan his plate and fork, and paused as he reached to retrieve his own. “Lynch,” he said carefully, plucking the dream pills off of the table and staring at the label. Ronan still thought it was kind of funny. “You already took one of these, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t make them to help with the pain,” Ronan said defensively. That was all attributed to the _actual_ medication, which he hoped to stop taking as soon as possible.

“You realise you can’t just waltz into the doctor with your ankle miraculously healed before six weeks is up, right?”

“I haven’t even booked an appointment with my GP yet,” Ronan said, stuffing a forkful of pasta into his mouth. “And it’s not like it’s gonna fix it immediately, anyway. It’ll probably take, like, a week. I think.”

“You think,” Adam echoed, visibly unimpressed.

“Dream science isn’t exact, Parrish,” Ronan said. “I’ll make an appointment for six weeks from now and dream up another cast to put on and bam, they’ll never know the difference. What’s your deal, anyway? I thought you were planning to major in engineering, not pre-med.”

Adam let out a long-suffering sigh and finally took a bite of his own dinner. “I just don’t want you to accidentally fuck yourself up,” he said. “What if the pills make you grow extra bones or something?”

Ronan snorted, pushing the pasta around his plate with his fork. “No faith, man.” He realised that Adam was mostly just trying to take care of him, but Ronan himself had no doubt the pills would do what he intended them to. He just couldn’t deal with being immobile and not being able to keep the farm running like he had been since the fall.

“If you grow a third leg, I’m dumping your ass,” Adam informed him.

“Already got a third leg, Parrish,” Ronan said, crudely grabbing his crotch, and Adam laughed and shoved him lightly before continuing to eat his meal.

-

Adam did their dishes after they’d finished eating, which Ronan complained about, but Adam pointed out that he had enough trouble moving around on crutches and he needed to get used to it first before he started doing things on his own.

“How am I supposed to feed myself tomorrow, then?” Ronan protested from the living room, not knowing if Adam would even hear him from the kitchen.

“I’ll make you a sandwich and leave it in the fridge,” Adam called back, and Ronan grumbled as he shifted around on the couch, trying to get comfortable. “And I’ll make dinner when I come over after my shift.”

“Didn’t know I’d locked down a housewife,” Ronan shouted.

“Call me that again and you can fend for yourself,” Adam shot back. He didn’t sound particularly angry, though.

When Adam was finished with the dishes, he returned to the den and helped Ronan lie down on the couch with his head carefully pillowed in Adam’s lap. He scratched lightly at the nape of Ronan’s neck as they watched TV, and Ronan let his eyes flutter shut as he hummed contentedly from the back of his throat.

“Don’t you have homework to do?” he asked weakly. He didn’t really want Adam to stop his ministrations, but when did Adam ever _not_ have homework to do?

“Hush,” Adam said, running his thumb along the shell of Ronan’s ear. “That can wait for now.”

Ronan eventually found himself dozing off in Adam’s lap, soothed by the gentle scratch of nails through his short hair. Adam stirred him around ten, and though it was still earlier than Ronan normally went to bed, he relented and made his way upstairs to clean up before bed.

Adam helped him keep his balance as he brushed his teeth and used the bathroom (which, Jesus _Christ_ , he hadn’t thought he’d need help taking a piss until he was fucking geriatric), and settled Ronan into bed before flicking off the lights and climbing in after him.

“You’re coming to bed already?” Ronan asked skeptically. Adam shrugged, reaching for the textbook he’d left on the nightstand when Ronan hadn’t been paying attention.

“I was going to study for the history test I have on Monday,” he admitted, sitting up so his back was resting against the headboard.

Ronan huffed and curled himself against Adam’s side, taking care not to get in the way of his reading. “Read it aloud to me?” Ronan asked softly.

Adam looked down at him, wrapping one arm around Ronan so he was holding him more securely against his side. “You want me to read about the Industrial Revolution?” he asked, looking amused.

Ronan grumbled and buried his face against the fabric of Adam’s (technically _his_ ) sweatshirt. “It’s hard to sleep with a cast on,” Ronan said. “Maybe your boring-ass history will knock me the fuck out.”

“Whatever you say, Lynch,” Adam teased. He flipped to the page he’d marked with a sticky note and softly began to read the chapter, rubbing the thumb of his free hand against the base of Ronan’s spine. It was more soothing than Ronan would admit, having Adam hold him while reading to him (even if Ronan frankly didn’t give a shit about the intricacies of the Industrial Revolution). He found himself nodding off again quicker than he usually did, and barely stirred when Adam eventually set aside the textbook and lay down properly next to him.

-

When Ronan woke up the following morning, the opposite side of his bed was empty. The sheets were cold, which meant Adam had likely been up for a while, but when Ronan checked his alarm clock it was barely after seven AM.

He hauled himself out of bed and grabbed for his crutches, hobbling to the bathroom to piss and brush his teeth (all on his fucking own, who would’ve thought) before very slowly making his way downstairs. He found Adam in the kitchen, sitting at the dining table with a bowl of oatmeal in front of him. 

“Good morning,” he said, smiling sleepily at Ronan. Adam was always softer and warmer in the morning, and it was one of Ronan’s favourite versions of him. “I fed the cows and let Chainsaw out. Opal’s already gone out exploring, but she told me she’d be back before it gets dark.”

“The runt can stay out as long as she wants,” Ronan said, taking his seat next to Adam with minimal difficulty.

“She’s worried about you,” Adam said, eating another spoonful of oatmeal before getting to his feet. “She’ll probably come home sometime this afternoon. What do you want for breakfast?”

“You don’t need to dote on me, Parrish,” Ronan said, moving to stand from his chair, but Adam clasped a hand on his shoulder to keep him from standing up.

“Not doting,” Adam said, stooping down so he could press a quick, chaste kiss against Ronan’s lips. “Just making sure you don’t over do it. Do you need another painkiller?”

Ronan glanced down at his ankle; it ached a little, but wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been the previous day. He wondered if that was due to the dream pills or if there was still residual pain medication in his system. “It’s okay,” he said, shaking his head. “Coffee would be fucking great, though.”

Adam hummed and moved to stand at the counter, grabbing a clean mug from the cupboard and filling it with coffee he’d already brewed for himself. “Oatmeal or cereal?”

“Cereal,” Ronan relented with a sigh, accepting the coffee as Adam handed it to him. “Thanks.”

Adam set a bowl of Frosted Flakes and a spoon in front of him before taking his own seat, moving to dig Ronan’s cell phone out of his pocket and set it down on the table between them. “Gansey said he’s going to come over when school’s done,” Adam told him, scraping the sides of his bowl to get the last bits of oatmeal. “And I’m going to the store to get a phone before my shift at the warehouse.”

Ronan quirked an eyebrow, surprised Adam had tried to slide that tidbit in with the rest of what he’d said. “You don’t have to do that,” he said. He knew Adam didn’t want to waste the little money he had on something he considered to be a luxury.

“I mean,” Adam said, letting his spoon clatter back into his bowl. “At this point I feel like it’s kind of important to have one in case of emergencies.”

Ronan thought of all the times it would have come in handy over the past year and found he couldn’t really argue that point. He wanted to ask if Adam could afford it, but he knew that would spark an argument he didn’t want to have this morning. Instead, he said, “Whatever you think’s best.”

“I’m just gonna get a basic plan,” Adam said. “Whatever the cheapest option they have is. Just in case _someone_ ,” he looked pointedly at Ronan, “needs to get a hold of me.”

“Gansey’s gonna call you every time the Pig breaks down now,” Ronan said with a grin.

Adam rolled his eyes and got up to wash his bowl in the sink. “Emergencies,” Adam repeated, as if that was going to deter Gansey in the slightest.

Adam went back upstairs to grab his school bag and deposited Ronan’s dishes into the sink when he returned to the kitchen. “I have to stop at St. Agnes to change into my uniform before school starts,” he said. “But I’ll be back after my shift is done tonight. Call Gansey if anything happens, all right?”

“Yeah, Parrish,” Ronan said. “I’m not gonna try to do anything _strenuous_. I’ll just watch TV and jack off or something.”

Adam snorted and leaned down to kiss Ronan, a little deeper than he had before. “I left a sandwich for you in the fridge,” Adam said. “Enjoy your day of _Office_ reruns and jerking off.”

When Adam left, Ronan made his way to the den to find something to watch on the TV. The masturbating thing had mostly been a joke, but he briefly considered it before pushing the thought aside. He had a cast on, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t suck Adam’s dick when he came back to the Barns later in the evening.

Ronan wondered if Adam would let him dream him a better phone before he went away to college. It wasn’t likely, but he couldn’t help but think about how Adam’s voice had soothed him to sleep the night before, and how much he was going to miss it when Adam had gone away to school.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my brother for running me through the logistics of breaking a variety of bones while doing farm work because I have no everloving idea how the human body works.  
> If anyone has any more prompts they'd like to see, feel free to send me an ask or a message on [Tumblr](https://actuallyronanlynch.tumblr.com/)! I'm always looking for more ideas for Raven Cycle fics.  
> As always, comments and kudos are super appreciated ♥


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